#i've genuinely enjoyed the rest of the show so far but this episode is intensely painful to watch | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

monstrousgourmandizingcats · 1 year

Note

what's Lottie Lee?

I'm glad you asked, anon!

Lottie Lee is a femslash ship between Lottie Matthews and Laura Lee (it's unclear if this is a double-barrelled first name or if she is on Charlie Brown-style full-name basis with the rest of the cast) from the show Yellowjackets, which I've been blogging about a lot lately. They're teammates on the Wiskayok High School Yellowjackets, the 1996 New Jersey girls' state soccer champions, whose plane--chartered by Lottie's loathsome rich asshole father--crashes on the way to nationals and leaves the team stranded in the Canadian wilderness for nineteen months.

Laura Lee is introduced as a clueless, naive Evangelical girl who throws up a ton of death flags, but she survives the crash and becomes a more complex and important character (she has a meaner sense of humor than one would expect and enjoys ribbing her teammates, among other things). About halfway through the first season Lottie, who is being heavily medicated for schizophrenia that may also include an element of genuine precognition or clairvoyance, goes cold turkey off her meds and begins having powerful audiovisual hallucinations that are soon coupled with what appears to be demonic possession after a just-for-fun seance goes horribly wrong. She seeks out Laura Lee for help understanding what is happening to her and they enter into an intense spiritual friendship in which Laura Lee validates and encourages Lottie's visions in return for imposing a conservative Protestant theological structure on them. Unusually for this type of theme in this type of show, this is presented as generally good for both of them.

Unfortunately, this doesn't last for long, as Laura Lee attempts to fly an apparently airworthy general-aviation plane to find help but dies shortly after takeoff from what many of the other characters (and much of the fandom, myself included) believe to be direct sabotage by a malevolent supernatural force. Lottie is heartbroken and spends the rest of the show so far in deep mourning. By one episode after Laura Lee's death she is ordering Bacchae-inspired attempted sexual battery and ritual murder of another important character called Travis while high off her ass on powerful entheogens in combination with the preexisting antipsychotic withdrawal. By two episodes after Laura Lee's death she is starting a cult and in the second season we learn that a version of the cult has kept on keeping on into the early 2020s, with a superficially more stable middle-aged Lottie at its head.

And yet she keeps having visions of the deceased Laura Lee--two major ones in the second season, potentially with more to come in the third (fingers crossed!)--who keeps attempting to provide her with moral guidance and categorically refuses to give up on her and abandon her to her metaphorical and/or literal demons. @eucatastrophicblues and I have decided that if the Yellowjackets cosmology has a conventional heaven and hell then Lottie will almost certainly end up in the former, not because she's handling her own shit successfully (she is Not) but because Laura Lee is almost certainly willing to go full Trajan Option for her even after she eventually dies. (As another fandom of mine might put it, "Deathless devotion! Dyke drama! Obliteration!")

tl;dr Lottie Lee is a ship that I feel microtargeted by and if you are asking me this question on anon you might feel microtargeted by it too.

#yellowjackets #lottie matthews #laura lee #lottie lee #anonymous

16 notes · View notes

thequeenofsastiel · 2 years

Text

KinnPorsche Episode 7 Review-In which TheQueenofSastiel comes to terms with the folly of expecting this dark af mafia show to have anything resembling healthy relationships

The main thing I liked about this episode was the fact that Porsche himself took a really dark turn, wantonly killing and kidnapping without any apparent guilt. Porsche's sweetness has been my main resisting factor when it comes to indulging in the darkness that is this show. But now that he's also become a dark character, I can turn on the part of myself that can enjoy a show like Hannibal(which remains the best show I've ever seen and if you like darkness and homoeroticism then hard recommend), and am thus enjoying this show and Kinn and Porsche's relationship a WHOLE lot more.

Anyways, I liked this episode a lot. Vegas is definitely one of my favorite characters. He's a villain, true, but I have a strong appreciation for the fact that he at least seems to treat his people very well. I'm always trash for powerful people who acknowledge the humanity and dignity of those with less power. I also can't help but really enjoy Porsche and Vegas's scenes, despite the fact that Vegas is a villain. I honestly find Vegas fascinating. I'm genuinely not entirely certain if his attempted seduction of Porsche is solely motivated by his desire fuck over Kinn, or if he actually likes Porsche, and I enjoy that ambiguity. It did make me laugh when Porsche asked how Vegas knew that he wanted to open a bar on the beach, and Vegas said that he always made sure to know everything about a person he was into. All I could think was, "You know that's not actually an answer, Porsche. Don't you? Don't you??"

Porchay and Kim are cute, though admittedly I find their relationship far less interesting than Kinn and Porsche’s.

Korn confuses me. He doesn't want Kinn to have feelings for Porsche, and yet he isn't firing Porsche or even reassigning him. His behavior doesn't make sense.

Also I don't think I'm ever going to get over him cutting an apple on a PORCELAIN plate. What the fuck, bro? Cutting boards are a thing.

I find it amusing that Kinn, who so far appears to be doing his best to please his father, proceeds to spend the rest of the episode after that scene being incredibly possessive of Porsche, doing, as far as I can tell, absolutely nothing to resist his feelings.

Now that I'm indulging in my inner darkness(thank you for that, show), I'm not going to pretend I didn't absolutely love Porsche and Kinn in the episode. They were intense and wild, though Kinn definitely has a fuckton of softness for Porsche. I liked this:

This tiny smile at Porsche’s naiveté was very cute. I'm also enjoying Kinn's possessiveness of Porsche:

I found it peculiar that Kinn grabbed Porsche’s hand and pressed it against his crotch since, as far as I'm aware, the only time they've done anything other than kissing was when Kinn raped Porsche in ep 4. Though Porsche didn't seem to remotely mind. So I've gotta guess that they've had sex in between then and when Porsche kissed Kinn in ep 6.

It was very interesting that Kinn apparently ordered Pete to spy on Vegas and Porsche. I'm curious if that was more motivated by a lack of trust in Porsche or a lack of trust in Vegas. Though of course I'm sure it was both, I wonder which was the stronger point.

There were literally no women at that party, which I find extremely intriguing. I would think that a celebration of macho violent achievement would involve women, because parties like that usually do, so the lack of them is notable.

I didn't love Kinn slapping Porsche in the bathroom, but Porsche slapped him as well later on, and much harder, so 🤷‍♀️

I made a post about this earlier, but I find the fact that Kinn's response to Porsche suggesting that Kinn might kill him like he did Tawan was to call Porsche a slut baffling. Like, what? How are those two things related? Their whole encounter in the bathroom was intense and wild and unhealthy and captivating. I've watched it five times and still not gotten bored or any less confused by their behavior.

10/10 on the episode. Every part of it was enjoyable, even the parts that were confusing. I'm stoked that the next ep starts in five minutes.

#KinnPorsche #KinnPorsche episode 7 #kinnporsche review #my reviews

13 notes · View notes

ramblings-of-a-mad-cat · 3 years

Note

I caught your Yu-Gi-Oh reference :) I've been getting back into it recently, so it was a funny coincidence to see you mention it. Now for the obligatory question: what was your favorite duel from the anime? For me, it's got to be Yugi vs. Bakura during the Battle City finals. I love gimmicky win conditions, so Destiny Board is a really cool card to me (although it's pretty bad if you actually have a well-rounded deck with Spell/Trap removal), and also the haunted atmosphere of Dark Sanctuary.

Aha! Glad to meet someone else who enjoyed that series.

You’re right! Destiny Board is pretty damn cool. Difficult to pull off as, like you said, one Mystical Space Typhoon is all it takes to ruin that strategy’s day. Final Countdown is much more viable and doesn’t really have a counter so long as you can stall out the twenty turns...but it’s not nearly as cool! There's also the classic Exodia, but he more or less requires one to build their entire deck around the end-game of "summoning" him. Which is fair, I mean, it's an instant win if you do, and Exodia decks can be fun as well, like they're totally viable. (I say this like I've kept up at all with the metagame.)

My favorite duel is probably a toss-up between two.

The first being “Face Off.” The three episode duel between Kaiba and Yugi toward the end of Season 1. Apart from the little things, like how much I enjoy the style of the prototype duel disks, and how this duel introduced Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon...this duel does what the best ones do - it tells a story, and the stakes are emotional. Sure, the “Living Arrow” is peak Season 1 nonsense, but who cares? It was creative, and more importantly, it was symbolic of Yugi’s goal to save Solomon. Still, what really sells this duel for me is the end. That’s when things get intense. Kaiba puts it very simply. “It can’t end this way.” And he’s not going to let it. He will threaten suicide if that’s what it takes to force Yugi to concede the game. Because Kaiba is ruthless, and Mokuba matters more than anything. It’s the peak of Kaiba’s character arc. (This is unrelated, but I low-key feel like Season 2 threw away all of Kaiba’s growth, and then he remained static for the rest of the show. Which kind of sucks, because he and Joey had amazing character arcs in Season 1.)

What’s more, it also forces the conflict between Yugi and Atem, who had only just recently become aware of each other. It demonstrated how far Atem was prepared to go. (Which I’ll discuss more in my other favorite.) The emotional weight of this one just gets to me every time. Yugi’s breakdown after Atem’s betrayal destroys me. He’s lost the chance to save Solomon, and lost the ability to trust Atem. That mysterious voice in his head, who up until now, he’s depended on. Kaiba’s stony indifference as Yugi’s friends yell at him for what he’s done, because what is he supposed to say? No matter what, losing this duel was not an option for him. What I find myself respecting is how shameless and honest he is about it, too. He admits that he cannot defeat Yugi outright, that he’s lost the game. (Again, I find it hard to picture Kaiba doing this even one season later) But he still makes it clear that he will cross whatever line he needs to in order to walk away victorious. Because this is for Mokuba.

But tied with this one, is “Fate of the Pharaoh.” The first duel between Rafael and Atem in Season 4. I’ve got to confess something, another unpopular opinion - I freaking loved Season 4. It broke my heart as I got older and discovered that it was universally hated. As much as I love Yugioh Abridged, watching this particular arc got tiresome because about 50% of the jokes were just “lol, Season 4 is bad.” Like, sure, it was filler...but it was interesting! Hey, at least the Orichalcos arc actually waited it’s turn, rather than abruptly occurring in the middle of Battle City, am I right? The Orichalcos being stronger than the Puzzle was a great way to immediately establish this unknown force as a threat, and it’s only because the Orichalcos is older, so as far as I’m concerned, that checks out. In particular, I have to commend the character of Rafael. Seriously, he is one of my favorite characters in this entire franchise. A true Anti-Villain. So loyal to his monsters that he refuses to even let them enter the graveyard. And when you learn his backstory, you see why. Rafael is amazing, and putting him against Atem proves it. Other than Yugi, he is the only character to defeat Atem through sheer skill. He hands the overpowered, corruptive, soul-stealing card to Atem and he still wins, because he knows exactly how it will play out.

This duel has so many twists and turns, and seeing how far Atem falls, how much the power corrupts him...it’s chilling. It’s the little details, like how he creatively exploits The Seal’s ATK bonus to recombine Kuribabylon into that deadly demon spawn. Atem’s skill combined with the Orichalcos’ power is terrifying. I love how Joey notices that his playstyle is different, that it’s all about sacrificing, compared to Rafael’s style, going out of his way to save his monsters. Yugi’s sacrifice at the end was genuinely shocking as a kid, but it was also devastating. (Well, at least until they milked the hell out of it with flashbacks…) It changed the formula in a way that the show had never done before, it marked the point that this season transitioned into its second Act. Yugi was captured, and Atem was to blame. Like...damn. I’ve never forgotten the scenes that came later. Atem’s breakdown. “It should have been me! Yugi, come back!” (God can Dan Green act…) and then later on when the others figure it out. Tea’s realization in particular stands out. “You’re wrong! If Yugi lost, then how can he be standing right...behind me. Oh no…”

#Yugioh #Yugioh Duel Monsters #Pharaoh Atem #Seto Kaiba #Yugi Moto #Yugioh Season 4 #Yugioh Rafael #If anyone wants to send me asks about this franchise #I have seen up through the end of 5Ds #Always been meaning to get back into it #I have the means to watch Zexal and Arc V #But that will eat up even more time that I could otherwise be spending doing what I need to do #Or at least trying to do it

6 notes · View notes